This invention relates to an improved netting for wrapping round bales of crop material.
Twine and plastic film are well known expedients used to wrap round bales. U.S. Pat. No. 4,517,890 discloses such use of twine, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,409,784 discloses this use of plastic film. In addition, netting made of raschel fabric has been used for round bale wrapping as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,569,439 and 4,570,789. This type of netting is a warp knit material of coarse texture. Although raschel fabric netting has several advantages over twine and plastic film, it also has two significant disadvantages. One of these disadvantages is that raschel fabric netting is very difficult to cut. The other disadvantage of raschel fabric netting is that it shrinks in overall width when pulled lengthwise.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved netting for wrapping round bales of crop material which is easy to cut and which maintains its original, width dimension when pulled longitudinally.
The present invention provides netting for wrapping a round bale of crop material. The netting is preferably a plastic mesh including a plurality of longitudinal strands extending in a longitudinal direction and a plurality of transverse strands extending in a transverse direction. The longitudinal and transverse strands are connected together at a plurality of intersecting joints to define a plurality of rectangularly shaped openings in the netting. The netting has a minimum elasticity of about 15% in the longitudinal direction before tensile failure. This minimum elasticity prevents the netting from shrinking in the transverse direction when it is pulled in the longitudinal direction. The netting is preferably an extruded plastic mesh formed of polyethylene or polypropylene.